Enewsletter

Enewsletter • November 25, 2003

For the Animals.

Requiring Neither Validation Nor Excuse

When I stopped eating animals in the 1980s, the world for and of vegetarians
was quite different than it is now. Vegetarians – and especially vegans –
were often isolated, even insulted. Animal activism focused mostly on a handful
of rich white people who wore fur, and the vegetarian "movement" consisted
mainly of social support gatherings. "Advocacy" consisted mostly of
defensive justifications for ourselves, saying whatever we could to try to "Win
an Argument with a Meat Eater."

Thanksgiving was often the worst time for vegetarians, for the obvious
reasons. The siege mentality reached its peak on "Turkey Day,"
with family fights and mocking media reports.

How times have changed.

This isn't to say that everyone involved in the animal and vegetarian "movements"
now has a clearly
different approach to achieving animal liberation, or that the holidays
are a painless time for people who don't eat animals. Overall, though, there
is a lot less defensiveness, with vegetarianism no longer a "personal choice"
requiring rationalization. Rather, more and more people are clearly – and justly
– defining vegetarian as being about the animals and opposition to cruelty,
requiring neither validation nor excuse.

"Jane Bonifazzi-Hollander has heard it all before when it comes to vegetarian
Thanksgiving meals: What, no turkey? Where's the protein? It's got to taste
bad. For Bonifazzi-Hollander, a professional cook who's been teaching vegetarian
cooking classes for the better part of two decades, converting carnivorous nonbelievers
is a welcome test of her talents. Especially around Thanksgiving."